Coping with Depression:
Depression can affect anyone and strike at any time for any reason. Depression can come with negative thoughts ranging from worthlessness to guilt to inadequacy. It can also cause loss of appetite, fatigue and lack of sleep. Ongoing depression can also affect your health, from weight gain, cardiac problems, and digestive problems just to mention a few.
When depression surfaces, and the problems that come with it, only makes coping with life more difficult. While it’s true that depression can be treated by synthetic medications (including their unhealthy side effects) and various treatments that mental health professionals advise and control, you can also enhance your mood nature’s way. How? By using mood-enhancing vitamins that are natural and can help you cope better.
Mood-enhancing Vitamins for Depression:
Let’s examine the vitamins that can help with depression, one by one.
B-Complex for Emotional Health
– Vitamins B-1 and B-3 can improve your emotional state of mind and mood. They are found in lean meats, colorful vegetables, poultry and fish. They can also help alleviate fatigue and loss of appetite that one could experience with depression.
– Vitamin B-6 helps the brain produce serotonin, the feel good hormone. Serotonin is what our brain produces to maintain a healthy, positive outlook in life. Vitamin B-6 is found in can be found in 100% whole grains, bananas, fish and spinach.
– Vitamin B-12 can help with focus and clarity, removing the brain fog one might feel from time to time. This vitamin is found in foods such as fish, milk, eggs, poultry and beef liver.
– Folic Acid also a B-vitamin can help decrease the homocysteine levels within the body, which is thought to be one of the mechanisms that can enable depression to take root. Folic acid can be found in foods such as beef liver, lentils, 100% whole grain grains, potatoes, spinach and Brussel sprouts.
– Homocysteine and Methylation rely a great deal on B6, B12, and folic acid for the proper synthesis of the neurotransmitters that play an important role in mood regulation.
As these B-vitamin levels decline, the methylation cycle can become impaired, and lead to an increase in homocysteine levels, in disrupting the neurotransmitter synthesis. Because of seeing the close relationship between neurotransmitters and homocysteine, some researchers suspect that there is a correlation between homocysteine and mood.
Citric Acid Can Help Fight Depression
The lack of Vitamin-C can bring about mood changes, fatigue and lethargy. If you are always trying fad diets for weight loss or your diet consists of fast food meals with few vegetables and fruits you could be lacking Vitamin-C, and could be one of the explanations for your depression.
Moderately low levels of Vitamin-C have been linked to depression. One study published in the “American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry” (Jan. 2011) reported that people with low levels of Vitamin-C were found to have more episodes of depression.
The link between Vitamin-C deficiency and depression may be caused by lower neurotransmitter levels, as Vitamin-C works with the enzyme dopamine-beta-hydroxylase to convert dopamine into norepinephrine, which has a role in the regulation of mood (Nutrition Journal, Aug. 2003).
Vitamin D
Canadian researchers using 31,424 participants, found a correlation between depression and a lack of Vitamin D. They reported the lower the vitamin level, the greater the chance for depression.
Get at least 20 minutes a day of sun exposure so your gets the need Vitamin-D for better emotional health as well as for the health of other parts of your body.
Trace Minerals And Elevated Minerals
– Essential trace minerals such as (but not limited to), manganese, selenium, chromium, zinc, magnesium and others affect carbohydrate tolerance and the body’s ability to regulate glucose metabolism. If these minerals and others not mentioned are deficient or unbalanced, can cause severe fatigue and depression.
– Even elevated minerals in your body can cause depression, like calcium, magnesium, and copper. The only way to truly know of any possible imbalances of trace minerals in the body is with a tissue mineral test. Your best opportunity of getting one of those tests is with a Naturopathic Doctor.
Depression can be a serious thing to deal with if it is constant and ongoing. If you do eat a well-balanced diet, and feel you are getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs, but still suffer with depression, it would be wise to consult your doctor, as there could be other health issues at play.
Science is now seeing that food has a great deal to do with your health and the health issues we face as we age, and this website that you are exploring in this moment, the Health News Library, has always said, “Learn how food correlates to a healthy you.”
